we had friends -- it's past tense now -- in washington, d.c. they've been together for over a decade. one partner went out of town on a business trip. came back, opened his apartment door. and his partner was on the floor, having passed out -- or died of a heart attack in his absence. the deceased partner's relative was a lawyer brother in boston for whom had been estranged. he came and took everything. the laws were against the one that -- they shared their lives and their fortune and yet he lost t all. so this grieving partner lost not only the love of his life, but everything that they had built together. there's that kind of injustice. and this barrier that we insist on, legalistic barrier that we insist on putting up is to me unfathomable. in the case of our being incourse rated in the second world war, we looked different. we were visibly identifiable. but in the case of homophobia, we are literally members of a family. we are sons and daughters of heterosexual parents. we are brothers and sisters. we are literally kin, blood kin, and yet